Thursday, July 22, 2010

Picklepalooza: The Aftermath

On Tuesday, I spent ten hours in a kitchen with 3 other ladies making pickles. TEN HOURS!

And, if you can beleive it, I left early...crazy ladies were in the kitchen till midnight, finishing up with relish.

Sweet Mary, if I never see another pickle in my life it'll be too soon. (Aside from the thirty some-odd jars I have in my basement of course.)

We made about 95 jars of dill pickles. 29 jars of bread and butter pickles. And 24 jars of relish.

Holy. Shit.

So we weren't planning to go so crazy, but my friend GROSSLY overestimated how many cucumbers we'd need.

Note for cucumber buyers - four bushels is TOO MUCH, even split between 4 people!! (We even gave a bushel away!)

The trouble with canning though? It's like a sickness. Yesterday (on my way home from picking up the pickles no less) I passed a vegetable stand and there were beautiful baskets of green beans there...I almost stopped. But then I stopped myself! I need a bit of pickle recovery time before I bust out the caner again...you know, at least a day or two.

Whoa, Nelly, that's a lot of pickles. Now I feel lazy for popping our extra cukes in a jar of leftover pickle brine from store bought pickles. This does make a decent half-sour if you like those, not that you need any more pickles.

Hi Jenn, Hats off to you for tackling so many pickles! Seeing the jars all lined up reminds me of when my Mom would make pickles and jam and chutney and... except that she would leave the jars turned upside down after sealing them. If anything leaked, then she would know that it hadn't sealed properly and that it should be eaten up first.

About Me

We're just a couple of folks (and a dog) who decided to leave our little apartment in Toronto's Parkdale for greener pastures (literally!) We now live in a spot that we simply refer to as Paradise. There's some sewing that happens here, some moanings and complainings, some old fashioned country goodness, a few very cute blondes, and a whole lotta love. These are our stories.